A HOUSE OF LEARNING
by Kimi Eisele
Thanks to a grant from ArtPlace America, the Raúl H. and Patricia M. Castro Border Studies and Outreach Center will house the project VozFrontera, which will help develop youth leadership through creativity and art. On a steep hillside in Nogales, Ariz., sits a century-old stone house. Green foliage and ivy shade the front porch, but the back offers a clear view into Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, on the other side of the border wall several hundred yards away. Once the residence of Arizona’s first Latino governor, Raúl Castro, and his wife, Pat, the house is quiet these days. But it will soon be a hub of activity, a place where young people learn to document Nogales’ stories and traditions, where artists and scholars engage the community, and where young leaders and entrepreneurs incubate their ideas. A new project, VozFrontera, is the vision of the Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA), an affiliate nonprofit organization of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and several cultural leaders, artists, and community organizers. In December, SFA received a $350,000 National Creative Placemaking grant from ArtPlace America, a nationwide initiative supporting projects that place arts and culture at the center of community planning and development, to make VozFrontera a reality. The grant will support two years of programming. The ArtPlace grant will also provide funds for the remodel of the Castro House, which was donated to SBS by the Castro family in 2015, who envisioned it as a place for extended student exchange and learning, said Ginny Healy, SBS senior director of development. “The Castros wanted to make sure students had a place to meet, review research, and collaborate with each other and with students on the other side of the border. They
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SBS DEVELOPMENTS 2018
thought their home could provide that,” Healy said. The first gift for the Castro House renovation came from the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice. In addition to housing VozFrontera, the Castro House will bring people together for collaborative research, outreach programs, and lectures. Plans include meeting rooms, a technology lab, and a resource center where students and community members can access UA library systems, Healy said. Programs will build on SBS’s current offerings in the community, which include courses in anthropology, Latin American studies, Mexican American studies, and journalism. “With the ArtPlace funding in the community of Nogales, we can now say this is really happening. The University of Arizona is really going to have a presence in the community. There’s a renewed energy there and a sense of pride. It’s made it real,” Healy said.
ANIMATING COMMUNITY AND CULTURE SFA is perhaps best known in the region for its production of the annual folklife festival Tucson Meet Yourself, now in its 45th year. The organization also works year-round to celebrate and promote heritage, traditional arts, and folklife practices in the region through festivals, artist support, and cultural community development. Community relationships have long been a critical component of the organization’s work, said Maribel Alvarez, executive director of SFA and the Jim Griffith Public Folklore Chair at the UA Southwest Center.
